Author Archives: Zachary Shahan

A Tesla Motors Club forum member somehow came across a 2018 electric vehicle (EV) sales target from Volkswagen Group that the company shared back in 2010. Volkswagen was hoping to sell ~300,000 EVs a year by 2018. It turns out the 2018 total was more like ... 82,685 (and that's counting a bunch of plug-in hybrids as electric vehicles, which many people wouldn't count)

Just after publishing Maarten's superb article on the electric vehicle explosion coming to Europe in 2019, I got word of the Glovis Captain arriving into Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium. I threw some tweets about this into the bottom of Maarten's article, but given how long Europeans have patiently waited for their Model 3s, it seemed the news deserved its own headline

Tesla reported financials for the 4th quarter of 2018 and for all of 2018 last week. The company also gave some guidance for the coming quarters. The results included Tesla's second consecutive quarter of profits, which came after months of Wall Street analysts and the financial media claiming that Tesla was about to run out of cash (and might even go bankrupt), couldn't possibly post a profitable quarter in 2018 (and certainly not two quarters of profits), and would need to raise money again to fund its massive "cash burning" production processes.

The most popular CleanTechnica articles of January were led by a CleanTechnica analysis showing (before Kelley Blue Book came out with its rankings) that the Tesla Model 3 was performing exceptionally well on the used car market. A comparison between the Tesla Model 3 and Honda Accord slotted into the #2 spot, and a perspective-focused piece on Tesla's December sales and inventory landed in #

The 20 most popular CleanTechnica articles of the past week covered Tesla 12 times, EVs in general 3 times, non-Tesla EVs twice, solar power prices twice, and eggshells once. But this sort of masks something

Tesla has published its 4th quarter 2018 shareholder letter. We will pick apart the details and add our own commentary and extra context soon. In the meantime, click here to read the full thing and here are the summary points

A long time ago, in a land far, far away, Tesla Motors was a baby. (It would later change its name to Tesla, but that's another story.) Being a young baby, tiny little Tesla was not valued as highly as it is today. It was worth relatively little to outsiders, nothing close to its market cap of $51 billion today

Two weeks ago, we published our 2019 CleanTechnica Car of the Year finalists. In case you missed that announcement or just felt too lazy to take 10 seconds to vote, we wanted to give you a proper second chance. So, I'm republishing a portion of that article intro, the finalists again, and how to vote. After this, the polls will be closed and we'll be announcing the winner

The most popular CleanTechnica articles of the past week were actually not led by a Tesla story. (Though, Tesla Model 3 is in the title since the featured EV, the Hyundai Ioniq, is being compared to the Model 3.) Other top stories included some findings from a rather limited but interesting survey of Tesla buyers who used the referral code of one of our writers, Tesla layoffs and Wall Street's response, an open letter to Toyota USA, and a piece rounding up 30 Tesla sales charts from the past month

Journalists have a very special duty. They are critical to any democratic society and to any free market — or semi-democratic societies and semi-free markets. I am a bit cautious about criticizing journalists or the media with any kind of blanket statements. Such criticisms are popular these days, but they are generally oversimplified and often incorrect. That said, many journalists would do well to revisit their underlying mission, as would many of the executives at major media agencies. Everything is not about money, despite what some have convinced themselves

Less than 3 weeks ago, Michael Barnard conducted an analysis for CleanTechnica examining the resale value of the Tesla Model 3 compared to competitors. The conclusion was that the Model 3 was dramatically better at holding its value than other cars in its class

I recently had some fun digging up old Tesla news, putting it in the context of the company up to today can make it fascinating. I've also elaborated on 11 years of hyped up FUD about Tesla and claims of its eminent demise for the past decade, as well as 8 "impossible" goals the company has achieved. I forgot, though, that a reader sent along a list of his own back in October. It's a great list as well, so I'm writing about it here for another round of "Tesla Flashbacks."

With our US large luxury car sales report, US small & midsize luxury car sales report, US electric vehicle sales report, and other Tesla-related sales reports recently completed, it's time for another edition of Nasty Tesla Charts!

For years, we heard and read so much hype about "Tesla killers." It was like fingernails on a chalkboard from the beginning, because it just didn't make sense, but it started getting really absurd as you saw the titles pop up frequently for all manner of EVs and concept cars

A recent news item — €70 Billion A Year In EU Health Damage Caused By Vehicle Emissions — reminded me of the following article, which is a piece I wrote in 2016 to try to more directly communicate the issue to people. Initially, the opening line below was the title

I started covering the solar energy industry seriously in 2009. It seemed like a hopping, exciting time in the industry — growth was exploding. I remember one early story in which readers admonished me a little because I put "Solar Power Exploding" in a headline, and they thought I was referring to genuine explosions. In 2019, 2009 and 2010 progress looks like anthills

Tesla's global sales in the 4th quarter were almost as large as Porsche's and Jaguar's sales combined, showing Tesla's continued rise in the broader auto market. It also shows Tesla's quick transition through these more limited, exclusive segments and into the direction of larger brands like BMW, Audi, and perhaps even Toyota someday

The top, most popular, most clicked stories of the past week here on CleanTechnica were about the Tesla Model 3, Tesla Roadster 2, Tesla Supercharging, Tesla Model S, other electric vehicles coming to invade Europe, the cost-competitiveness of solar + storage, and more. Scroll through the headlines and click the links to find out more and to read any stories you might have missed in the 100 articles we published last week

Oh, poor Model S. With the Tesla Model 3 now on the scene in full force and consistently ranking in the top 5 of US car sales, the older, bigger Model S doesn't get nearly the attention and discussion it used to get

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